HOUNSHELL Surname DNA Project- Background

Administrators

Surnames

Honchell, Honshell, Honshul, Hounchell, Hounshell

Background

Johan Caspar Haunshield married Christina Messerschmiedin, from Westtown Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, on 2 April 1757, by the Rev. Pastor Friedrich Schultz. This marriage record has been misread and widely published on the web and elsewhere as follows:

“1757, April 13 in Conrad Jost’s house.” This date and location applies to the Schlatzer-Keplerin marriage listed above the Hounshell marriage in the source book, not to our Haunshild-Messerschmiedin marriage. John’s ancestry is presently unknown. (Augustus Ev. Lutheran Church, Trappe, Pa.: record of marriages, confirmations and burials, with a list of the contributors to pastor's salary, Nov. 27, 1760. 1897. Reading, Pa: Pennsylvania-German Society, page 496.)

Christina Messersmith (Messerschmidt in German), daughter of Andreas Messerschmidt and Anna Maria Heyes, was baptized on 17 October 1728, in Ofterdingen, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany. She was probably also born there in 1728. Ofterdingen is a town in the district of Tubingen, and lies about 8 miles south of the town of Tubingen, which is located about 20 miles south of Stuttgart, the old capitol of the duchy and kingdom of Wuerttemberg, Germany. The Andreas Messerschmidt &wife Anna Maria Heyes family arrived in Philadelphia 5 August 1751, on the ship “Nancy”, Thomas Coatam, Captain, from Rotterdam with 200 passengers. They arrived with six of their eight children, Christina, Agnes, Hans Bernhard (Barnabus), Johannas (John), Sebastian, and Maria Sophia. The others, Regina and Anna Maria died in Ofterdingen and are buried there. Three of these children are known to have come to Southwest Virginia, Christina who married John Hounshell, Barnabus who never married, and John Messersmith. (Canfield, Clifford R. 1987. My German ancestors I: Brandstetter, Daude, Lambert, Messersmith and allied families. Carlsbad, California, [s.n.]. page 59.)

Most of the information on the early Hounshell and allied families of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky is a result of the extensive research conducted by Mr. Clifford Robert7 Canfield, (Margaret6 Hounshell Canfield, Joseph Albert5 Hounshell, Joseph Sampson4 Hounshell, Peter3 Hounshell, Andrew2 Hounshell, Johan Casper1 Hounshell).

Mr. Canfield was born 25 June 1925 at Taft, California, and in (August, 2002) lived in Hemet, California with wife Mary J. (Fike) Canfield. I had corresponded with Clifford Canfield in Germany just prior to his first book being published, but he didn’t have time to include more information on my line at that time, much of my data was not published. Mr. Canfield's prior research along with research during his ten year stay in Germany as a U.S. Armed Forces schoolteacher, resulted in “ CANFIELD, C. R. (1973). The Hounshell family of Southwest Virginia. Frankfurt, Ger, (by Clifford R. Canfield, Frankfurt, Germany, June 1973. His German research also resulted in,(Canfield, Clifford R. 1987. My German ancestors I: Brandstetter, Daude, Lambert, Messersmith and allied families. Carlsbad, California, [s.n.].Mr. Canfield passed away on 15 Jan 2005 in Hemet, CA.

The first mention I, (Thomas R. Luce, of Bethel, Ohio), have found of my ancestor John Casper (Johann Caspar) Hounshell after his arrival in America, was by accident during one of my several, genealogical trips to Washington, D.C. in the 1970’s & 80’s. One of my mother’s German ancestral lines is Umstat, Umstead, and etc. (Settled in Germantown, now Philadelphia, PA in 1682). While checking the indexes of the original five volumes of “Notes and Queries Historical and Genealogical Chiefly Relating to Interior Pennsylvania”, William Henry Egle, Harrisburg, Pa. : Harrisburg Pub. Co., 1896 -1900, at The Library of Congress, I discovered the following entry, and immediately recognized it as my Hounshell family. I knew from previous research that my Hounchell’s had apparently pronounced their surname with a silent “H” for some period of time:

My ancestor John3 Owndshell(Hounchell), son of Andrew2 & grandson of John Casper1 was born in Wythe Co., VA, and moved to Lee Co., VA, and then several years later went thru the Cumberland Gap to Clay Co., Kentucky. John died there on 30 Aug 1854. His death record reads as follows: at the age 73?, of Bilious fever, Son of A(ndrew) & L(ouisa) Owndshell & born in Wythe Co., VA. John and his sons were listed as Ownshell in the 1850 census for Clay Co., KY.

My research discoveries were made too late to be incorporated in Clifford’s books mentioned above. He graciously gave us his notarized permission to incorporate his published works into our later research, during my visit to his home in Hemet, CA in August of 2002.

The following baptisms were originally published in book form in ““Notes and Queries Historical and Genealogical Chiefly Relating to Interior Pennsylvania”, William Henry Egle, Harrisburg, Pa. : Harrisburg Pub. Co., 1893, page 48.

1.) “Unchild, b. May 20, 1759; bap. Festo Trinitatis, 1761; witnesses, Jacob Speidel and Elizabeth Greb." (Note: This Unchild child was baptized on the Festival day of Festo Trinitatis, 1761. No first name or sex was given for the child baptized.)

A second set of birth and baptism records are the results of a 1957 translation from the German script of the original St. Paul Church registers performed by Lutheran Pastor Frederick S. Weiser. Paster Weiser’s translation resulted in some changes from the original translations of our baptisms performed in the late nineteenth century for “Notes and Queries, …”. As can be seen above, in the first translation from German, of our baptisms published in 1893, the baptism record for the first child omitted the sex and first name of the child baptized on 17 May 1761 and born on 20 May 1759. Many, including myself, assumed this record could have applied to the child (Major) John Hounshell. Paster Weiser’s translation of 1957, proved that assumption wrong, and showed the dates applied to John Casper Hounshell’s daughter Maria Elizabeth Hounshell.

John Casper Hounshell and Christina Messersmith probablyhad four children as listed below. The last three of these children were probably born in Pennsylvania, and baptized at St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (also known as Hill Church (“Bergkirche”) or Sand Hill Church or as Maxe Church (“Maxe Kirche”) in Derry Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, as translated by Paster Weiser.

1.) John (Major John to distinguish him from John Casper Hounshell the father), exact birth date and place unknown. He may possibly have been born about say May 1757, based on having been at least 16 years old when listed in “Capt. Doack's List of Tithables for 1773” ordered by the newly formed County of Fincastle, VA.

1757, April 2: John Casper Hounshell married Christina Messersmith. They were of Westtown Twp., Chester County, Pennsylvania, by the Rev. Pastor Friedrich Schultz.

1766, Nov 2: Son Andrew baptized at the St. Paul Lutheran Church, Dauphin Co., PA. Sometime after this date John Casper Hounshell and family moved to Virginia.

1768: John “Houncal” was one of thirty-one inhabitants of Reed Creek, of Holston, Augusta County, later to become Wythe County, Virginia, who signed a Petition directed to the worshipful Court of Augusta County asking that the road to their Patent lands be improved.

ca. 1757: Son (Major) John Hounshell bornin possibly Westtown Twp., Chester Co., Pennsylvania.1771: John “Hownshell” appears on “A List of Tithables taken by Walter Crockett from William Sayers to the Head of the Holston River – 1771”. This list of Tithables was ordered by the Botetourt County Court, to be taken by Walter Crocket in Capt. Doalk's

1766, Nov 2: Son Andrew baptized at the St. Paul Lutheran Church, Dauphin Co., PA. Sometime after this date John Casper Hounshell and family moved to Virginia.

1768: John “Houncal” was one of thirty-one inhabitants of Reed Creek, of Holston, Augusta County, later to become Wythe County, Virginia, who signed a Petition directed to the worshipful
Court of Augusta County asking that the road to their Patent lands be improved.Bruce, Philip Alexander, and William Glover Stanard, 1893. The Virginia magazine of history and biography. Richmond: Virginia Historical Society, VOL. XXX, pg. 199-200. (Doak's) and his own company. John’s brother-in-law John Messersmith also appears on the list. Kegley, Mary B. 1988. Glimpses of Wythe County, Virginia. Charleston, W. Va: Pictorial Histories Pub. Co., VOL. 2, 147, 148.

1772: John “Hownshell” appears on "A list of Tithables in Capt. Doacks and my own

Companys for the year 1772, taken by Walter Crocket. This list was taken for

1773, aft. May 3: John “Ounshell” appears on “Capt. Doack's List of Tithables for 1773”, ordered by the newly formed County of Fincastle. Capt. Doack took the list for his own Company. John’s brother-in laws John & Barnabas Messersmith also appear on this list. A note at the bottom of the list showed men who had more than one Tithable: “John Ounshell: 2”.

The lists of tithables above (1771, 1772, and 1773) were taken under the 1748 Tithable law of the Colony of Virginia as follows: “That all male persons of the age sixteen years and upwards, (and etc.), shall be and are declared to be tithable…..” This note referring to two tithables probably refers to John Casper Hounshell and son (Major) John. Son John probably was sixteen years old in 1773.